Research results
Within my activities in Equipe, I broke the problem down into two key aspects:
a. What are the normative aspects of equity in protected area management and governance?
Here, I analysed how and to what extent different aspects of equity are explicitly or implicitly included in legislation and policies that define how protected areas are governed in Brazil using a thematic analysis. Our results provide an overview of equity in the normative aspects of the governance of different types of protected area in Brazil, specify the key aspects that must be implemented in practice to advance equitable governance and management, and highlight where there are gaps in the treatment of equity in legislation, policies, and protocols across protected area types.
b. What does equity in protected areas look like in practice?
Here, I carried out 55 semi-structured interviews with key informants in relation to four protected areas in the northern Brazilian Amazon, chosen because of key differences in their management and governance. Participants were selected via a snowball sampling approach, and interviews were carried out around three key questions / topics:
1) What does equitable conservation look like to different actors, and how do these aspirations fit with theoretical definitions?
2) To what extent is current governance and management equitable? and
3) What are the possible pathways to a more equitable future?
Career development
As planned, my training in advanced concepts of applied social sciences took two main forms: I participated in formal training courses offered by the Social Research Association (SRA), covering designing a qualitative study, interviewing, ethnographic methods, qualitative data analysis, and interpreting and writing up qualitative results; and I learned “on the job” from more experienced colleagues. This included visits to CEH Edinburgh to work with Dr Juliette Young, and collaborating with Dr Neil Dawson on a British Council funded research project also exploring social equity in just one protected area in Brazil, Catimbau National Park. In working with these colleagues, I was able to gain powerful insights into the application of the methodologies I had learned in theory, drawing on their extensive experience in the field. These experiences were transformative for my career development, and were entirely made possible by the opportunities arising from the funding provided to me by the Horizon 2020 program, which placed me in the research team at the University of Aberdeen. Over the past two years I have also had the opportunity to further strengthen my teaching and supervisory skills by: 1) co-supervising two PhD students (Ms Vivianne Eilers, University of Aberdeen, and Mr Bayron Callé-Rendón, Federal University of Amapá, Brazil), and one master’s student (Holly Williams, Imperial College London); and 2) contributing to undergraduate and post-graduate teaching in both Aberdeen and Brazil.
Dissemination and outreach
Beyond the dissemination via publications that will result from the research results outlined above, I have also published two papers, together with colleagues from six local institutions, concerning a key equity issue in the Brazilian Amazon - the expansion of large-scale mechanised agriculture and it’s impacts on sustainable development. Furthermore, I have had the opportunity to discuss key findings of my research in informal seminars given to my colleagues at the University of Aberdeen in each year of the fellowship. These seminars were not only a chance to disseminate my research to my colleagues, but also a chance to get wide and varied feedback on my on-going research. In November 2018, I was invited by the head of department to present my research at the School of Biological Sciences Research Day. This event is intended to showcase the diversity of research taking place in the school. In July 2018, I also presented my research at the Federal University of Amapá, where I had been invited to speak to students and staff about social equity, protected areas and environmental governance. Finally, I presented as part of a session on indigenous land rights and conservation at the Norwegian Latin American Network conference in Oslo, Norway in October 2018.
